II.1.6 Rectenna Location Considerations for Western Europe An assessment of rectenna site selection for the USA made clear the problems how to erect rectennas in a density populated region. So the erection of rectennas in the central USA would not generate severe problems. But more than half of the coastline rectennas would have to be offshore constructions because there is not enough land available. Our estimates show, that the ratio of land based rectennas to offshore rectennas would be essentially smaller in Europe compared with the USA. We do not believe that the introduction of a SPS-system in Europe will be supported by the public, if in the order of one half million people have to leave their homes! Unfortunately most regions in Western Europe, where land based rectennas could be erected, do not require large amounts of electricity. On the other hand the surface transportation of electricity is very expensive and has low efficiencies particularly for greater distances. So before making any general recommendations on rectenna siting, it is necessary to localize the European centers where large amounts of electricity are required. Fig. 1.8 is a chart of Western Europe, where the present main industrial centers are marked. Reliable future industrial development data were not available to us, so this chart is used for extrapolations in the following sections. The selection criteria for the consumption centers were rather weak. There was no consistent data basis available on regional power demand and demand forecasts for all potential centers, so we had to make estimates in several cases. A consumption center is to be understood as an area with a high power consumption density and a limited size. Our basis for the selections and estimates was a circular area of 100 km diameter and a power consumption higher than 3 GW. Fig. 1.8 shows additionally a "smoothed” Western European coastline which has a length of approximately 14900 km compared to 7000 km for the U.S. coast. Tab. 1.4 contains a more precise
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